


if you can hold me without hurting me (you'll be the first who ever did)

by tamquams



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Adam Parrish Loves Ronan Lynch, Adam Parrish is Bad at Feelings, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Author Uses Too Many Adverbs, Author Uses Too Many Semi Colons and Em Dashes, Author Wrote This at 4AM and Only Proofread it Once, Canon Compliant, M/M, Pre-Epilogue, Ronan Compliant Language, Ronan Lynch Loves Adam Parrish, basically every other word is a swear
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-12
Updated: 2020-02-12
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:20:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22683883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tamquams/pseuds/tamquams
Summary: If Adam thought he was traumatized by being forced to attack Ronan, he couldn’t evenimaginehowRonanfelt about it all. Literally, he couldn’t imagine, because he refused to speak to Ronan about it at all.That, of course, did not last long at all, because Adam was not particularly subtle when he was upset about something, and the more upset he was, the less subtle he became, and he happened to be in a house full of psychics.
Relationships: Ronan Lynch/Adam Parrish
Comments: 19
Kudos: 272





	if you can hold me without hurting me (you'll be the first who ever did)

Adam Parrish was no stranger to pain, or fear, or damage. These were intrinsical themes in his life, concepts that were (quite literally) beaten into him. Feelings he knew far more intimately than love or friendship or family. Even at eighteen years old, he was quite certain that there was nothing left to learn.

Oh, how he was wrong.

There was a certain level of fear, Adam discovered, that could only be achieved by losing complete control of one’s body, especially when that loss of autonomy resulted in harm coming to a loved one. Say, for instance, you were possessed by a demon and forced to strangle the boy you were in love with half to death. 

That would, hypothetically, be a most traumatizing experience.

This was, of course, not hypothetical. It was just another item on a very long list of terrifying, disturbing moments in Adam Parrish’s very short life. Well, no, not _just another_ item, it was the first item, and also the last item, and half the items in between. It was what he thought about the moment a room got quiet or he found himself alone. It was what he dreamed about every single night. It was what haunted him so deeply that he wasn’t even sure where he ended and the trauma of it began anymore.

And it wasn’t just the trauma that had him fucked up, but also the fact that he couldn’t talk about it. Not that Adam was the type of person who really liked to talk about his problems, but certainly this was something that should be articulated. The thing was, however, that each of his friends had their own damn trauma from that day. In his head, he ticked them off one by one.

1\. Gansey fucking died.  
2\. Blue fucking killed him.  
3\. Henry… was there, and didn’t even know what was going on.  
4\. He had ripped open Blue’s stitches when he was possessed.  
5\. And hurt Cheng and Gansey, too.  
6\. Gansey had found Glendower fucking _dead_.

And, of course, Ronan. He had to make a whole new list just for fucking Ronan.

1\. Found his mom dead, like, just the night before.  
2\. Nearly fucking died dreaming up something to find Gansey.  
3\. Had to fight off a fucking _demon_ that was _unmaking_ him and everything he had ever dreamed.  
4\. Watched his best friend in the world _die_.  
5\. And got fucking choked nearly to death by the boy he had been in love with for years.

Yeah. If Adam thought he was traumatized by being forced to attack Ronan, he couldn’t even _imagine_ how _Ronan_ felt about it all. Literally, he couldn’t imagine, because he refused to speak to Ronan about it at all.

That, of course, did not last long at all, because Adam was not particularly subtle when he was upset about something, and the more upset he was, the less subtle he became, and he happened to be in a house full of fucking psychics.

“You’re afraid,” Calla, one of the psychics in mention, said as she placed a hand lightly on Adam’s shoulder. He was leaning in the doorway of the living room, watching his friends curl around each other on the couch and talk quietly. There was space left for him beside Ronan, but he just eyed it warily. One of his hands twitched.

“Yeah,” he said in a quiet voice, not quite looking at her. “Don’t think you need psychic powers to see that.” That was not the way that Adam usually spoke to his elders, but. Well. It had been a long day.

If Calla found his reply abrasive, she didn’t let on. “You’re all afraid,” she said, her hand unmoving. “But you more than the others.” She paused, and Adam could tell she was reading him. “It wasn’t your fault.”

Oh, but it _was_. It was his fault for making the bargain with Cabeswater, it was his fault for caring about Ronan so much that the demon could _feel_ it, it was his fault for not figuring out how to stop it sooner. It was all his fault, and he couldn’t fucking trust himself.

“The demon is dead,” Calla said, as if she could read his thoughts, because she could. “It won’t happen again.”

“And how do you know that?” asked Adam, mostly defensive, but also actually wondering.

“Because I’m a psychic,” she said simply, and it would’ve sounded like a joke had it been anybody but Calla. “You aren’t going to hurt him again, Adam, or any of the others. They know it wasn’t you.” 

“But it was me,” Adam protested, suddenly swiveling to look at her. Her hand lost its grip on his shoulder. “It was my body, it was my nails that ripped through Blue’s stitches, it’s my handprints on Ronan’s neck, it was _me_.” His voice cracked, but he was too upset to even feel embarrassed.

Calla didn’t flinch, didn’t take a step back, didn’t even arch her eyebrow at him. There was a certain softness in her voice as she said, “You wouldn’t hurt them on purpose. I know that, and they know that, and you know it, too.”

Adam could feel at least one pair of eyes on his back, knew at least one of his friends was watching his conversation, but he didn’t glance over his shoulder to look. He kept his eyes on Calla as he spoke. “What if I’m like him?”

Had he asked Gansey or Blue or Ronan this question, they would all understand the meaning and trip over themselves in an effort to reassure him that he _wasn’t_. But Calla was robbed of context, so she didn’t answer immediately, just put her hand back on his shoulder and closed her eyes. She was quiet for a moment, thoughtful, and then suddenly she drew in a sharp breath as if she had been hit and removed her hand abruptly.

He knew the memory she had seen, because it was the one at the forefront of his mind: the night he lost hearing in his left ear, the night that Ronan suckerpunched Robert Parrish on his own front lawn, the night Adam’s father went to jail. It was playing on a loop in his mind, interrupted only to allow the memory of attacking Ronan some air time.

Calla was quiet for a very long moment, contemplating something deeply, so Adam just stood in front of her and waited. And waited. He wasn’t entirely sure, but he was pretty sure the quiet chatter in the room behind him had stopped, and he thought that if he turned he would see all of his friends watching him closely, so he consciously kept his gaze on Calla.

Finally, her mouth opened, and her words came carefully, as if she had just written an entire script before answering his question. “Just the fact that you’re worried about turning out like him tells me that you won’t. You _aren’t_. You aren’t like him, Adam. Your fate is not decided. Do you know what I felt when I touched you?” She didn’t wait for him to answer. “I felt love, and I felt loyalty, and I felt compassion. I felt those things deep in the core of who you are. And when I looked at your memories, I didn’t see any of those things on your father’s face.”

Adam nodded, pressing his lips together in a thin line. He was positive that all conversation had ceased in the living room.

“You are who you are _despite_ him, Adam,” said Calla, tilting her chin fiercely, as if she expected him to argue. “Not _because_ of him.”

Coming from anybody else, he wasn’t sure the statement would’ve stuck with him, but this was Calla. She was not the type of person to worry about someone else’s feelings. She was not the type of person to sugarcoat anything. For a second, he thought about how she had spoken to Ronan when they had come for their reading all those months ago. He realized that some part of him, however small, believed her.

“Thank you, Calla,” he said hoarsely, his manners finding him once again. He didn’t bother clipping his vowels, and the Henrietta drawl bled into the words, and she smiled at him, soft and warm, a rare thing. She gently removed her hand from his shoulder.

“Go be with them,” she said, inclining her head toward the living room. “You all need each other.” He nodded again and turned to his friends.

Blue, Gansey, and Henry had the common decency to immediately turn toward each other and act like they hadn’t been spying, and Adam was thankful for that. He wasn’t sure how much they had heard, or if they had just been watching, but no part of him felt like explaining anything to them at the moment.

It was just Ronan who didn’t look away; Ronan who never backed down from a fight, Ronan who valued the truth and honesty above all things. Ronan who had two dark, hand-shaped bruises on the pale skin of his neck. Pain shot through Adam’s chest like a bullet. 

Wordlessly, Adam joined his friends on the couch, sliding in beside Ronan. He felt a hand slip into his, saw the lightest blush on Ronan’s face, and sighed. He could try. He could try.

Ronan and Gansey were the insomniacs of the group; Adam had always blessedly slept easily. It was the one thing he had going for him, really, the one privilege he held above his massively wealthy, loved friends. And yet, it was three in the fucking morning, and he hadn’t slept a wink.

Logically, it made absolutely no sense, because it had been a very long day, and he hadn’t slept in like, thirty hours, and he was in a comfortable bed for once in his damn life. Sleep should’ve come more easily than ever. But it didn’t. It couldn’t penetrate the layers of grief and guilt and relief and absolute chaos that surrounded him. It couldn’t turn off his mile-a-minute brain, or even slow it down. He was being held hostage by consciousness, and he was going to lose his fucking mind.

Finally, when it became beyond unbearable to just lay in bed and stare at the ceiling, Adam threw the covers off of himself and slid out of bed angrily. He pulled a pair of jeans on and then headed downstairs quietly, skipping the creaky step he had memorized from all of his time spent in this house. 

Since it was three in the morning, Adam hadn’t expected to run into another wakeful person, but nothing seemed to be able to go his way anymore, so of course there was somebody sitting at the kitchen table when Adam slipped silently into the room. He froze, staring at the lone figure while his brain went into overdrive trying to understand a single thing that had happened in the last several months. 

“Oh! Dude, you just scared the ever-loving shit out of me,” said Henry fucking Cheng. “Couldn’t sleep?”

For a moment, Adam considered his options. One: turn around and go back the way he came without acknowledging Henry. Two: sit down with Henry and figure out what Gansey and Blue could possibly see in him. Three: just leave and walk around until he either passed out from exhaustion or got hit by a car.

In the end, his manners (and will to live, however strained) won out. Adam pulled out the chair across from Henry quietly and sat down, folding his hands on the table in front of him, unsure of what to say. He didn’t know Henry very well at all, didn’t completely understand how he had become tangled up in the events of the last few days, and didn’t even _begin_ to understand how Gansey and Blue had fallen so immediately in love with him, but. But. Henry had helped them. He had been there with them when everything was going down, and if Adam was being completely honest with himself, he was the inspiration for Adam’s idea to bring Gansey back. Plus, Gansey and Blue trusted Henry with their lives. The least Adam could do was give him a shot.

“What are you still doing up?” asked Adam, looking up from his hands and instead letting his curious eyes wander over Henry for a moment. 

“Just got a lot on my mind,” Henry said with a shrug. His lips curled into a smile. “And yourself, Mr. Magician?”

It shouldn’t have annoyed Adam, but it did. When Cabeswater sacrificed itself for Gansey, Adam lost his power. When he went searching for his connection to the ley line, it was gone.

He missed the magic so much that it hurt.

Adam must have winced, because Henry’s expression sobered ever so lightly. “Sorry,” the boy said. “I didn’t mean to-”

“No,” interrupted Adam, shaking his head. “Don’t apologize. It’s not your fault.” He drummed his fingers against the tabletop nervously, looking away. “Actually, I’m the one who’s sorry.”

“For what? Oh, that? Man, don’t even worry about it. That wasn’t nearly the weirdest or worst shit to happen today. We’re cool.”

Adam glanced back at Henry, slightly surprised. How was he so _cool_ about all of this? Adam was still freaking out, and he had been immersed in magic for months. For a second, he was at a complete loss for words. He let himself think for a moment, then said quietly, “Thank you.”

Henry just shook his head. “Adam, my man,” he said, and he sounded like he really meant it, “I think we’re friends now. I mean, we found a dead Welsh king and resurrected a mutual friend together. That makes us friends, right?”

Adam considered it. “Yeah, we’re friends,” he admitted.

“Okay, so I’m gonna say something only a friend would get away with saying. That cool?”

“That’s cool.”

“Dude,” said Henry, “you gotta get over yourself.”

A surprised sound escaped Adam, somewhere between a laugh and a scoff. “Excuse me?” he asked.

Henry paused for a second, as if he was formulating a sentence in his head. “I just, I mean, come on. Sargent literally _killed her true love with her lips_ today, and you don’t see her down here sulking, right? Today was messed up. Yesterday was messed up. With our luck, we’re gonna wake up tomorrow and find _it_ messed up, too. You’re afraid, and I get that. I’m afraid too. But the best we can do is move forward, and you gotta forgive yourself to be able to do that.”

Interesting. If Adam knew that Henry Cheng gave such great advice, he probably would’ve come to him sooner. He sat quietly for a moment, then nodded slowly. “Thanks, Cheng,” he said, rapping his knuckles twice against the tabletop before standing and heading back upstairs to sleep.

He woke up a couple of hours later, not long after dawn. For a moment, Adam couldn’t figure out what on earth had woken him from such a deep sleep. And then he heard a voice from the doorway.

“Adam,” Gansey said, one hand still on the doorknob. “A word?”

Adam’s heart was in his throat. “‘Course,” he said, sitting up and moving his legs to clear a spot on the bed for Gansey.

Gansey entered the room quietly, socked feet silent against the floor, closing the door with a soft click behind him. He padded over to the bed and sat down in the empty space Adam had left him, crossing his legs in front of him, and then he fixed Adam with such a look that Adam could barely hold his gaze.

Neither boy said anything for a moment. Then, carefully, Gansey said, “I’m sorry.”

It seemed to be a time for unnecessary apologies.

“What could you possibly have to be sorry about?” said Adam, tugging a hand through his sleep-mussed hair. 

“I know what you gave up for me,” said Gansey, his gaze unblinking behind his metal-framed glasses. “And I’m sorry that I… I…” 

Adam had to physically restrain himself from rolling his eyes. “What? No, Gansey, no. Don’t apologize. That’s stupid. First of all, I would do anything for you, including sacrificing every magical leyline forest in the world. And second, it wasn’t _my_ sacrifice. It was Cabeswater’s.”

Gansey ran a thumb across his bottom lip, thoughtful. “You can’t feel the leyline anymore, can you?”

The question surprised Adam. He hadn’t revealed this to anybody yet, hadn’t had the energy or the mental capacity to explain it. Part of him was secretly hoping that the line was just exhausted, much like he was, like it got when Ronan and Kavinsky had been draining it with their dreams over the summer. But the bigger part of his brain, the logical part, knew that wasn’t the case. Cabeswater was gone, and so was his connection with the line.

“I can’t,” he admitted, looking down at where his hands picked absentmindedly at the stitching on the quilt that covered his legs. “I don’t think- I don’t think the line is gone. But my connection to it is.”

Gansey breathed in raggedly. “I’m sorry,” he said again.

“No, seriously, Gansey, don’t be sorry,” said Adam, shaking his head slowly. “I don’t… I don’t need magic. But I need you.”

They were both quiet for a moment, and then Gansey said, “I can feel it.”

And, well. Oh.

Adam expected jealousy and resentment to wash over him, but neither came. Only one thought crossed his mind, and he vocalized it. “Is it okay?”

Gansey thought for a moment. “I don’t really understand it.”

Adam nodded, familiar with the sensation. He met his friend’s eyes. “Try scrying,” he suggested.

Gansey smiled lopsidedly at that, nodding. “Duly noted,” he said, and then he uncrossed his legs and moved to leave.

Adam glanced at the clock on the table beside the bed, considered the merits of going back to sleep versus going downstairs and eating some breakfast. Suddenly, Gansey was in front of him again, pulling him into a fierce hug. Adam wrapped his arms around his friend and thought blankly, _This is the first time we’ve ever hugged._

After a moment, Gansey pulled away and headed toward the door again. At the last second, he looked over his shoulder and said, “Adam?”

Adam met his gaze dutifully. “Gansey?”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself. It’s okay.” And with that, Gansey was gone.

Adam really should have gone back to sleep.

If he had gone back to sleep, he would’ve gotten several more hours’ rest, some peace and quiet, and time to think more about the absolute chaos that his life was. But, ever the overachiever, he had chosen to get up and make a pot of coffee, and now he was in this predicament.

 _This predicament_ actually meant _a conversation with Gwenllian._

“Well, well, well!” Gwenllian had exclaimed the moment Adam appeared in the kitchen doorway. “If it isn’t the little mongrel!” She paused, considered. “I mean, _Adam Parrish_ ,” she amended, unrepentant. “Where is your king, Adam Parrish? He was here just a moment ago, but when I turned around to get something to eat, he disappeared!”

Adam definitely couldn’t blame him. “Hell if I know,” he grunted, walking past her to grab the can of coffee grounds. It was mostly full, as the women of 300 Fox Way seemed to greatly prefer tea over coffee, but Adam was not one of the women of 300 Fox Way, and he needed his caffeine.

“Sleep well, Adam Parrish? The demon is gone, your king lives, the sun rises on a new day! Do you feel the sunshine, Adam Parrish?”

All Adam _felt_ was annoyed. “Yeah, I feel the sunshine,” he lied, his hands mechanically going through the steps of making coffee. 

Suddenly, Gwenllian was beside him, looking him over carefully. “You know, Adam Parrish, I know what it means to be not awake and not asleep at the same time.”

For a fraction of a second, he froze. Then he returned to the task at hand, but his face tilted toward Gwenllian. “What do you mean?” he asked, his voice hollow.

“Either of us could be the second sleeper, Adam Parrish,” she said, and then, without elaboration, she suddenly skipped across the room and down the hallway.

“Wait!” Adam called after her, but it was too late. She was already gone, and even if she hadn’t been, it was very unlikely that she would explain herself to him. 

In the hallway, her slightly muffled voice sang “Blue Lily, Lily Blue!” and then it was silent once more.

Aggravated, Adam pushed the button to start the coffeemaker and then leaned backwards against the counter with a great sigh, eyes fluttering closed. God, he should’ve gone back to sleep.

“Regretting every life decision you’ve ever made?” a voice said from the doorway. Adam’s eyes snapped open. “Yeah, she’s got that effect on people.”

Blue Sargent was leaning slightly against the doorframe, her arms folded across her chest. She was wearing remarkably normal clothes — a grey nightgown that went to her knees and a pair of fuzzy black socks — and her hair was down, barely grazing her shoulders, all tangled and wavy from sleep. It occurred to Adam that he could feasibly understand why he had been attracted to her, but the love he had for her was strictly platonic now, and he was grateful for that.

“You’re making coffee?” she asked, moving slowly across the cold kitchen floor. She dragged a chair away from the table, letting it make its loud awful noise against the floor, and then flopped down into the seat. 

“Yeah,” said Adam, turning his good ear away from the gurgling of the coffeepot and toward Blue. “Didn’t get a lot of sleep.”

“You could always go back to bed,” suggested Blue, raising one dark eyebrow. “It’s not like we’ve got a lot going on today.”

Adam just shrugged. He couldn’t really explain himself, but then again, he didn’t really need to. The look on Blue’s face said _I understand. I’m here when you’re ready._

They existed together in silence for a few minutes, the house quiet and calm around them, and then Adam said, so softly he wasn’t sure she could even hear, “I’m really sorry, Blue.”

She leaned back in her chair, stretched her pale arms over her head. Glared at Adam for a second. “I know,” she said through a yawn. “I know you are. But you don’t have to be. I know you wouldn’t hurt me, Adam.”

It was so similar to what Calla had said that for a moment, Adam had the mortifying thought that maybe Calla had shared their conversation with Blue. But then he thought, no, she wouldn’t. But she did help _raise_ Blue, so wasn’t it inevitable that there would be some Calla in her brain?

“I wouldn’t,” he agreed as the coffee maker beeped behind him. “But I’m still real sorry.” He grabbed two mugs from the cabinet, and heard Blue’s chair scrape as she approached the refrigerator to pull out a carton of milk. 

Adam poured two mugs of coffee, Blue poured milk in them both, and then they took turns spooning sugar into their cups until the coffee was drinkable. And then they sat at the kitchen table as the morning sun began to wake the rest of the occupants of Fox Way, and a new day began.

“Parrish.”

It was always going to come to this, Adam thought over the roar of blood in his ear. It was always going to come to him in Blue’s backyard crying, and Ronan tracking him down to tell him he couldn’t trust him anymore, and everything going to hell. But knowing this was going to happen wasn’t making it easier, just like knowing Gansey was going to die hadn’t made _that_ any easier.

Okay, maybe it was a bit of a dramatic comparison. But, in Adam’s defense, he was running on very little sleep and a _lot_ of coffee, so.

“Lynch,” Adam mumbled into the dirt. He was sprawled out face-down on the ground, forehead resting on his hands, his awful, evil hands, the dust beneath him absorbing his tears. 

“The fuck are you doing down there?” Ronan asked from somewhere above him. Adam didn’t reply. Slowly, he felt Ronan lower himself to the ground beside him. Adam turned his head slightly, but it was too late. “Shit, Parrish, are you crying?”

“No,” Adam snapped, and it was a lie, but it made him feel better to say it. “Fuck off.”

“Jesus,” said Ronan, sounding somewhere between affronted and impressed. “I’m not gonna make fun of you. Unless you’re crying over something stupid. Then I’m gonna mock the hell out of you.”

Adam turned his head toward Ronan, grinding his teeth. “What do you want?” he asked, and he had expected his voice to have more bite, but really it was just tired.

“To talk to you?” The look in Ronan’s eyes wasn’t angry, it was confused. “You’ve been avoiding me since, you know. Everything.”

“Have not,” Adam lied.

Ronan sighed. “Parrish, I’m not gonna make you talk about your feelings if you don’t want to, but I am going to have to ask you to stop lying to me.”

“Well, I don’t want to talk about my feelings.”

“Then I lied. I am going to make you talk about your feelings.”

“You just—”

“I know what the fuck I said, Parrish, but I also know that you’re laying in the fucking dirt crying because you feel bad for hurting me, and I need to put an end to that bullshit right now.” It was hard for Ronan to look fierce while also laying in the dirt, but he managed it. “Listen to me. Are you listening to me?”

Adam rolled his eyes. “Yeah. I’m listening.”

“You better be. I need you to get it through your head that you didn’t hurt me. Are you getting that? _You didn’t hurt me._ ”

“Like hell I didn’t,” Adam said, sitting up. He didn’t raise his voice, didn’t even snarl the words; they came out frightened, sad, guilty. “Have you looked in a mirror? The fucking bruises on your neck, Lynch, God—”

Ronan sat up to look him in the eye. “Okay, obviously, you aren’t fucking listening to me, so let me try this again, with more words this time. You. Did. Not. Hurt. Me. Did I _get_ hurt? Yeah, if I’m being fucking honest, my trachea has seen better fucking days, but did _you_ do that? No. No, you fucking didn’t. You know what did it? I’ll give you a hint, Parrish, it was the same thing that possessed Noah and went all fucking exorcist on Sargent, the same thing that dragged me into a fucking hellscape to fight to the death, the same thing that- that- that killed my fucking mom, okay? The demon. The unmaker. Whatever you want to call it. It wasn’t you, you asshole. So stop blaming yourself. Jesus Christ.”

Adam was quiet. His mind ran through a million different arguments, throwing them out one by one, until finally it had to agree with Ronan’s logic. Which was definitely a knock to Adam’s ego, but whatever. It was better to have a wounded ego than to carry around guilt about hurting Ronan every day for the rest of his life. Anything was better than that, really.

“I was so scared,” Adam admitted uneasily, forcing himself to maintain eye contact. “Not for me. For you. You were-” He swallowed the lump in his throat. “You were dying. You were dying, and there was nothing I could do.”

Slowly, giving Adam every opportunity to move away, Ronan took Adam’s hand in his. With the pad of his thumb, he traced soft circles against Adam’s skin. “I know,” he murmured. “But I’m alive. And so are you. And so is everyone else.”

Adam nodded, blinking back tears. “Alive,” he echoed.

When Ronan leaned in to kiss him, Adam had the terrifying thought for just a second that he was going to lose control again. But as quickly as it had come, it was gone, and he leaned in to meet Ronan halfway, one hand on Ronan’s waist to steady himself.

He could feel Ronan smile into it, and then he felt hands in his hair, and he let himself relax into the feeling, rest his other hand on Ronan’s elbow, part his lips to let Ronan even closer. Ronan followed the movement easily, lazily, his own mouth opening slightly as he slid his tongue against Adam’s. It didn’t feel weird, or wrong, or bad. It felt _right_. Kissing Ronan felt like realizing you had the puzzle box upside down and had been looking at the picture all wrong the entire time, just to flip it over and for the whole thing to come together. 

Adam couldn’t help but laugh at himself for the sheer nerdiness of that thought.

“What are you laughing at?” Ronan mumbled, lips still more or less pressed into the kiss. 

Adam laughed breathily again. “Nothing that matters,” he said, turning his head to press a gentle kiss to Ronan’s jaw instead. He peppered the straight line of the jawbone with kisses, alternating between sweet and sloppy, and then pulled away a bit.

“You okay?” Ronan asked, voice low. His brows furrowed with concern as he watched Adam, panting, lean back on his heels. “We can stop-”

“No,” said Adam, shaking his head slightly. “I’m fine. I just…” His voice trailed off as he leaned forward again and pressed the lightest, softest, smallest kiss possible to one of the dark purple bruises on Ronan’s neck.

Ronan’s breath hitched slightly. Adam waited for him to pull away, and when he didn’t, Adam kissed the bruise again, still feather-light. “Is that okay?” he asked very quietly.

“Yeah,” said Ronan, and one his hands rested on Adam’s back, fingers splayed. 

Adam nodded to himself and then kissed the bruise again, and again, covering every inch of the ugly mark with his lips at least once. Ronan’s hand stroked his back lazily, the other hand resting casually on Adam’s lower thigh. He seemed to tremble slightly under Adam’s touch, but the rise and fall of his chest underneath Adam’s hands was slow and steady. When Adam had satisfied himself with one side of the neck, he moved on to the other, confidence surging in his veins. Maybe he hadn’t ruined everything. Maybe it was going to be okay. Maybe it was going to be better than okay.

It could’ve been ten seconds, it could’ve been ten minutes, it could’ve been ten years before Adam finally sat up straight, pressed one chaste kiss to Ronan’s lips, and then pulled back. “Are you okay?” he asked, sliding his left palm against Ronan’s right.

“Yeah,” said Ronan, a flush barely visible on his upper cheekbones. “Yeah, I’m good. You?”

Adam smiled softly, the tips of his ears warm. “I’m good,” he said, and he meant it.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed! If you want to talk, request something, etc, you can find me on Tumblr @wespers!
> 
> P.S. Title is from Cinnamon Girl by Lana Del Rey!


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